Chapter 1508 1507. A System that Is Hostile to the Whole World
Hinrich, Reed, Luol Deng, Garnett, Ben Wallace, and James Posey, Big Z, Joe Smith, and Adrian Griffin are on the bench. The Bulls' nine-man rotation defense is very powerful, and the rhythm is moving towards the direction of grinding the position from the beginning of the game.
The environment has a great impact on a player's playing style! Reed was also a good defensive player in the early stage of his career, but it was just good. The Bucks were so bad in the past few years that his defense was almost useless. But after coming to the Bulls, he played better defense than when he played as the sixth man in his early career.
Reed is mainly responsible for low-post singles and mid-range and long-range running to catch the ball and shoot on the offensive end, and plays iron-blooded defense according to Thibodeau's requirements on the defensive end.
The Bulls are indeed much stronger this season than last season. The zero-for-whole exchange for Reed has greatly strengthened their offensive ability, which they are not very good at.
However, compared with last season, the Hawks could only stubbornly increase the rhythm to fight against the rhythm and win or lose depending on the state. This year, the Hawks can have many ways.
In the starting phase, the Hawks played for more than two minutes because the Bulls' defense was very strong inside and outside. After that, they replaced the lineup of Liu Mang, Finley, McGrady, Scola, and Brad Miller, and played an offensive style with Miller and McGrady as the core, Scola in the low post, Liu Mang's running shot, and Finley's fixed-point shot.
Scola can shoot in the low post and in the mid-range. Although he is a rookie, he is 27 years old and has 11 years of professional basketball experience. He is not afraid of the stage at all, has a high basketball IQ, and is very good at choosing low and mid-range shots.
Brad Miller can shoot as far as the three-point line, and his passing skills are superb, which is specially used to deal with the super inside defense of Ben Wallace and Garnett.
McGrady's breakthrough, coupled with Brad Miller from the free throw line to the top arc, played a similar feeling to the cooperation between Mike Bibby and Divac in the past!
Although McGrady does not have many top abilities, he wins in all aspects! He can do anything, and his breakthrough is sharper than Mike Bibby. With Brad Miller, the whole Hawks team is running, and the people are moving.
The key lies in Liu Mang's long-range shot and Finley's fixed-point three-pointer.
Usually, we play with care and adjust our touch, so that we can play well when we meet such opponents!
Today, Liu Mang devoted himself to running and shooting. He played the whole first quarter and scored 14 points with 5 of 8 shots! 2 of 2 three-point shots are the key to the Hawks' lead!
The Bulls did not expect the Hawks' style of play. The Hawks' style of play is too varied. Even though Thibodeau studied the Hawks' offense day and night for the past two days, he did not expect the Hawks to play like this.
Garnett has a very good way to solve the problems on the defensive end. Brad Miller went outside the three-point line, and Ben Wallace certainly couldn't defend him. It was okay when he was young. Although Ben Wallace's assisting defense ability was not as good as Garnett's when he was young, he was also the best in the league. But Ben Wallace is now 33 years old, and defending the mid-range and close distance is already the limit.
Garnett is not good enough if he doesn't defend to the top arc, Brad Miller can make a three-pointer.
But Garnett defending to the top arc, which is the farthest place from the three-point line to the basket, has a huge impact on the Bulls' defense.
Although the Bulls' three outside players defended very well, they did a lot worse to defend Liu Mang's mid-range catch and shoot. The Bulls defended Liu Mang's three-pointer very closely, and Liu Mang was always stuck to someone when he was one step away from the three-point line. But Garnett was supposed to assist in Liu Mang's mid-range defense, and Garnett went to the top arc, which was troublesome for the Bulls.
Liu Mang made 3 of 6 mid-range shots in the first quarter, and made two free throws that caused a foul, scoring 14 points in the first quarter!
In the past two years, very few players have been able to score double digits in a single quarter against the Bulls. The boos on the scene were about to explode. They seemed to see the new basketball god who broke the record for single-game scoring in the playoffs last year!
Fortunately, the defense of the Hawks lineup is really average. The Bulls are working hard on the offensive end. Brad Miller and Scola's inside defense, except for the fake fall, really have no advantage. The inside defense of the two is not to be compared with Liu Mang. McGrady's inside block and inside shooting interference are better than them.
Reed's low-post singles allowed Garnett and Luol Deng to score a lot of points.
After the first quarter, the two teams played 28 to 26, and the Hawks temporarily led by two points.
The Bulls averaged 97.1 points per game this season, two points lower than the league average. They are strong in the league's lowest average loss of 87.9 points per game.
Scoring 26 points in a single quarter is not a common thing for the Bulls in the past two years. Seeing that the Hawks' defense is so bad, the Bulls fans are a little relieved. As long as they find a way to defend the Hawks, they have a chance to win! The Bulls fans are blind to their own team's defense. After all, they just played the strongest defensive efficiency in history last season.
However... compared with the blind confidence of the Bulls fans, the Bulls head coach Thibodeau feels that the problem is big!
The nine-man rotation makes the Bulls' execution on both offense and defense very strong, but correspondingly, they have no other players to use immediately!
Now the Bulls continue to have a center who can move well like Garnett to defend Brad Miller, so that Garnett can return to the inside defense, but the role player lineup looks very good for them, but Thibodeau can't find such a player to use!
The Bulls did select Metrics Nichols, a short center with excellent mobility, in the summer draft, but under Thibodeau, he has played more than a dozen games and has not had a chance to play.
That is to say, the Bulls can't think of a way to deal with Brad Miller, a space-coordinating center!
Seeing that the offense played well, Thibodeau is ready to make substitutions to strengthen the offense.
…
After the break, the Bulls replaced the inside combination of Joe Smith and Garnett instead of Big Z. Compared with Big Z, Joe Smith has many more offensive skills.
This is exactly what the Hawks want!
In fact, the Hawks have run this tactic, but since the start of the season, the Hawks have encountered two strong opponents, the Suns and the Spurs. These two teams are not suitable for playing against them. Princeton has a running offense this season. Princeton is good-looking, but not suitable for high-scoring competition.
Thibodeau studied this tactic for a long time and didn't notice it when playing against weak teams. When playing against weak teams such as the Hawks, they would win no matter how they played.
But it worked well against the Bulls. The Bulls' strength lies in defense. Not only do the five starters have high playing time, but they can also maintain high efficiency!
Liu Mang was surprised by Thibodeau's coaching ability in this regard. He really didn't know how this guy did it, but this was Thibodeau's biggest feature. He would definitely not pass on his bread and butter to others.
If the Bulls always insist on defense, the Hawks will have a headache playing against Princeton all the time, and McGrady will be tired of breaking through and passing the ball all the time.
Therefore, the Hawks have been planning to target the Bulls' inside rotation since the summer. The goal is not to kill the Bulls by attacking, but to use the situation on the field to influence the Bulls' way of substitution, so as to subtly let the Bulls slowly abandon their strongest aspects.
Seeing that the Bulls did not replace James Posey, a defensive stalwart, but continued to let the starting three-man lineup play, and sent two power forwards inside...
Liu Mang and the coaching staff felt that the game was gradually moving in a favorable direction!
In the second quarter, the Hawks continued to attack the Bulls. There was still a long time to play, and there were still three quarters. Before the end, the Bulls had to completely deviate from their original rhythm.
After the first half, the Hawks and the Bulls tied 57!
Liu Mang had 25 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists in the first half, McGrady had 7 points, 5 assists, 2 rebounds and 1 steal, and Brad Miller had 5 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.
In the second quarter, the Hawks suffered from rebounding. The inside combination of Marion and Brad Miller's rebounding protection was indeed average. The Bulls relied on Garnett and Joe Smith's offensive rebounding to get a lot of second attack opportunities.
In the third quarter, the two teams continued to attack, but after the official timeout in the third quarter, the Hawks suddenly changed four players, except Liu Mang, and the other four positions were replaced!
Rondo, Liu Mang, Grant Hill, Marion, Kwame Brown were replaced, and suddenly started to play defense!
The Bulls gradually gave up their strongest advantage and wanted to compete with the Hawks on the offensive end. In the second quarter, they tasted the sweetness, and in the third quarter, they completely ran away from their strongest advantage, which was defense.
And they didn't notice that they didn't change the offensive lineup in the first quarter, and still played well with the Hawks. The Hawks played against Princeton, which was mainly composed of McGrady and Brad Miller. The defense was not much better, and there was no need to compete with the Hawks on offense.
In fact, even if the Bulls put out an offensive lineup, their offensive ability was not particularly good, but the Hawks' previous lineup defense was even worse, just wanting to guide the Bulls' rhythm.
Use tactical changes to offset the iron-blooded field built by Garnett and Ben Wallace!
11 to 3!
In the last five minutes of the third quarter, the Hawks played an 11-3 wave, allowing the Bulls to get only three points!
82 to 73, the Hawks led the Bulls by 9 points after the third quarter!
Compared with the extreme tactical adjustments, except for the Suns, no other team in the league can match the Hawks. The Hawks' sudden strengthening of defense in the second half of the third quarter caught the Bulls off guard!
Suddenly transformed from a fierce offense to an iron-blooded battle, the Bulls, the most iron-blooded team in the league, began to collapse in the second half of the third quarter!
Liu Mang scored 25 points in the first half, and 31 points before the official timeout in the third quarter. However, he played 44 minutes in the whole game. He played the whole second half, but only scored 12 points in the second half, and scored 37 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks in the whole game.
The change in Liu Mang's score can be seen in the change of the Hawks' playing style in this game!
In the fourth quarter, the Hawks scored 19 to 12 in a single quarter. With the sudden strengthening of defense, they defeated the Bulls by 16 points, 101 to 85!
"Old Grudge: The host's team VS Chicago Bulls 1:0..."
... The Hawks and the Bulls played against each other for the first time in the new season, and the Hawks won by 16 points!
The Bulls scored 57 points in the first half, but only 28 points in the second half!
In terms of defense, judging from the performance this season, the Bulls will not lose to any team, and no team can compete with the Bulls in defense.
But the Bulls lost to their strongest point today!
Some fans don’t understand why the Bulls suddenly collapsed. In fact, many Bulls players themselves don’t understand why they suddenly collapsed. The Bulls played very well before the official timeout in the third quarter. They scored 14 points in the first 7 minutes of the third quarter and were on par with the Hawks. Suddenly, they only scored 15 points in the 17 minutes from the second half of the third quarter to the fourth quarter.
But the Bulls failed to defend the Hawks. The Hawks scored 31 points in the last 17 minutes!
Everything came too suddenly. In just one official timeout, the game went from being evenly matched to a one-sided crushing game!
After winning the game, the Hawks players were very excited to celebrate in the locker room. They were still a little worried at first. After all, they were just practicing before, and now they are still a little worried about using it against top teams.
But they won! Success!
The system that Liu Mang wanted gradually began to have some flavor.
When the Suns met the Hawks, O'Neal felt that the Hawks' system was aimed at him.
When the Spurs met the Hawks, Duncan also felt that the Hawks' system was aimed at him.
When he arrived at the Bulls, Garnett also felt that the Hawks' system was aimed at him!
Liu Mang's ultimate goal is to build an offensive system based on the seven inside players according to any opponent, change the style of play, and make all opponents feel that they are being targeted.
This is a psychological advantage!
Another word is "dominance"!
Liu Mang made plans from the beginning to be an enemy of the entire league! He wants to build a team that makes all teams feel scared!
"It's almost successful! When Wade returns, we will be completely integrated, and we may exceed the performance of the 05-06 season and become the strongest in history!"